Crimson and White
by Withering to Death
Summary: Another ItsukixMutsuki fanfic only different. What if Itsuki had angered the Abyss by looking into it and delaying the finish of the riutal? What if their ritual did suceed but Itsuki's look into the Hellish Abyss angered it causing for the Calamity?


_"The last image imbedded in my mind forever is of your corpse, falling away into the abyss."_

* * *

Hot tears streamed down Itsuki's face as he gently placed his hands over his brother's neck. The rapid thudding of his heart in his ears matched the same rapid thudding in Mutsuki's neck.

"I'm sorry…" His voice shook with the words and he let go of his brother's neck to give him one final tight hug. Mutsuki returned it weakly, trying to hold back his tears.

"Do it…I won't hate you…" Mutsuki whispered into his twin's ear before lying back against the large slab of rock. Itsuki bit his lip, hands returning to Mutsuki's neck. The rapid stamping of the priest's staves meant time was almost up. Itsuki once more wrapped his hands around his brother's throat. Without even realizing it he began to slowly drain the life from him.

Mutsuki tried his best to stay strong. He held back his tears and did not struggle as the weight of his brother slowly crushed him into the stone at his back. As the world slowly turned black, one single tear slowly drifted down the pale cheeks of the boy.

Itsuki became hysterical at the single tear his brother had shed at the end. Most who participated became so depressed they did not react when the priests pulled them apart for the final time and cut the rope. Itsuki screamed at the top of his lungs, fighting with his remaining strength to get away from the priests.

Mutsuki's body was slowly dragged up by the Forbiddens. As they were about to throw the black-haired boy into the Hellish Abyss, Itsuki broke free. He knocked over priests, screaming his brother's name at the top of his lungs.

"MUTSUKI!" He screeched, the name hoarse in his throat. He stumbled over the rock and managed to grab his brother's foot at the last second. Mutsuki halfway tumbled over the edge but mostly remained on. Priests rushed to the boy who was now trying to haul his brother up from inside the Abyss. A panicked priest grabbed Itsuki by the back of his shirt and began to yank him back. The yank was too hard though, the boy's yakata slipped from the priest's sweaty hands.

Itsuki released his brother's foot to stop his fall into the Abyss. His eyes went wide as he saw what really lurked at the bottom of the Abyss. Not only at that but the thought and image of seeing his brother fall into it caused him to scream once more.

"MUTSUKI!" He screamed again as he was pulled back by the shoulders. He began to kick and thrash even harder than before, screaming his brother's name. Tears streamed down his face as the world went black. His hysterics stopped as the Hellish Abyss stole his eyes as it had done to the Forbidden, who cast his brother's lifeless corpse into the Abyss as they had done to many others.

Itsuki slowly sat up, stumbling on his legs. He refused to eat now. The image forever imbedded in his sealed eyes was that of his brothers, falling away into that…that…THING! He couldn't keep his promise to help Sae and Yae escape now. He couldn't even help himself. He was so pathetically helpless in his mind.

It had been a week since he has killed Mutsuki. A long, torturous week of starvation, loneliness and of the picture engraved in his eyelids, the picture of his brother being swallowed by the malice in the Hellish Abyss, haunted him. He stumbled from his room looking like nothing more than a white haired skeleton with pale, frosty skin. His feet dragged despite being cut up by the splintering wood of the floorboards.

Sae and Yae had tried to escape and had failed. Sae had been caught but Yae was nowhere to be found. It was his fault now that they had to use her for the ritual. If only he hadn't looked in. If only he hadn't angered the Abyss.

He was startled, as he slowly walked outside, by the thundering sound of the village people trying to escape. The pained cries as hundreds were slaughtered by the Malice that erupted from the infuriated Abyss. The ritual had failed. Did they try and do the ritual without Sae? He had heard some villagers discussing that very fact the other day.

He was hit full-blown by the Malice as it sliced him down to the bone hungry for blood and pain. His small, fragile, body was ripped to shreds, unable to deal with such a force coming upon his frame.

As Itsuki lay on the ground, dying, crimson butterfly fluttered onto the boy's cheek, flapping its wings as if trying to soothe his pain. The glow faded slightly as if suffering as much as Itsuki was. The wings fluttered rapidly, creating small gusts of wind to Itsuki's cheek.

"Mutsuki?" He asked as he sputtered up blood. His body was drenched in the crimson, life giving, liquid. The same color of the ground he lay on. "Is that you?" His voice was soft, pained and hoarse from the Malice's angry attack. The butterfly just flittered its wings and fluttered to the boy's neck. The butterfly spread its wings and lay there, still, as if dead.

Itsuki's life faded away as the butterfly lay to rest with him. Slowly emerging from the boy's forehead was not a crimson butterfly but a pure, snow-white butterfly. The dim glow from the creature was not the soothing red of its relative, but a calm, pure white one. Stirring awake the crimson butterfly fluttered to the white one. Circling one another as one greets a long lost friend, they fluttered up towards the sky, together.

* * *

_ "Carried by the wings of a crimson butterfly. We will fly away, together again."_


End file.
